"There are lethal needles in my gun. You had better stop."
Campbell turned slowly. His face was wooden. Tredrick stood at the bottom of the steps. He must have crawled around the edge of the square, where the shadows were thick under the walls.
"Drop your gun, Campbell. And you, Stella Moore."
Campbell dropped it. Tredrick might be bluffing about those needles. But a Mickey at this stage of the game would be just as fatal. Stella's gun clattered beside him. She didn't say anything, but her face was coldly murderous.
Tredrick said evenly, "You might as well call them back, Campbell. You led them in, but you're not going to lead them out."
It was funny, Campbell thought, how a man's voice could be so cold when his eyes had fire in them. He said sullenly,
"Okay, Tredrick. You win. But what's the big idea behind this?"
Tredrick's face might have been cut from granite, except for the feral eyes. "I was born on Romany. I froze and starved in those rotten hulks. I hated it. I hated the darkness, the loneliness, the uncertainty. But when I said I hated it, I got a beating.
"Everybody else thought it was worth it. I didn't. They talked about freedom, but Romany was a prison to me. I wanted to grow, and I was stifled inside it. Then I got an idea.
"If I could rule Romany and make a treaty with the Coalition, I'd have money and power. And I could fix it so no more kids would be brought up that way, cold and hungry and scared.